Me and Me Dad: A Portrait of John Boorman

You need to learn the language of film.

It's a language that is very easy to understand. Anyone can watch a movie.

But to...

to tell a story in cinematic terms is difficult.

This programme contains some strong language.

'I think everybody should make a documentary about their father.

'So I went to Dad and I said, "Well,

' "can I shoot a little portrait on you?"

'To discover him as a man.

'Will I be able to recapture something that had been lost?'

What we'll do is we won't do a tight close. We'll just do a mid-close.

-If you're making quick cuts to it, you'd better be close.

-OK.

Otherwise...

All we're going to have, then,

is the ambience of the river behind you?

-Well, have a look. I don't know.

-OK. Let me have a quick look.

-Exactly.

-Well, let me sit down here for a minute and see if we can...

-Here.

Just sort of here you're sitting. There.

If I'm here, say, with a bit of luck... Like that.

And then, you come about here and see.

You have to be pretty low, I should think.

And you probably need to be over a bit, don't you,

-to get the background? I don't know.

-Yeah.

And you've got quite a nice backlight here.

If you were lighting this, what would you do?

-I'd just put polystyrene.

-That would be it?

Put a light on the polystyrene.

Shine the light onto the polystyrene and the polystyrene onto the face.

And would you put the polystyrene under the camera here?

-No, just to one side. A sheet of polystyrene.

-Right.

-And then shine a light onto the polystyrene to make it brighter.

-OK.

And then get a soft light onto the face.

But you've got quite a lot of light on your face here.

-Yeah.

-Is that too much, do you think?

-Well, it may be. I don't know.

-I can't tell from sitting here.

-Let me look at the camera.

I thought you'd solved this problem with a tripod. So, up...

Check on the adapter... >

You've both finished talking?

HE LAUGHS I'll start now!

-So, after I'd finished Point Blank, Lee...

-Hold it.

-Oh, for fuck's sake!

-Listen!

-What?

I started filming a bit with Dad, and he was quite impatient and...

LAUGHTER

You know, and then he realised that our camera was sort of tilted

because what Sophie and I didn't realise was that there's that

bubble in the tripod that you have to set like a builder's,

-you know, planar thing...

-A spirit level.

..and there's this bubble. We hadn't got that bit, you know.

And I'm just hoping maybe you and -

-if you don't mind - some of your blokes can...?

-Yeah.

Well, I can get the guys to show you some of the equipment

that you might need.

I think, you know, having worked with Dad...

To an extent, you've worked with Dad before. It was Excalibur, wasn't it?

But he'd always want to tell you what to do as well.

Well, he's so controlling, isn't he? He's a director but...

I mean, the idea is to do maybe a five-minute portrait

but, you know, maybe it could develop into a documentary.

I don't know. But it's going to be really exciting...

It's going to be wonderful to spend that kind of time alone with him

and, you know, really get to the bottom of that secretive man

-cos he's quite secretive, isn't he?

-Good luck!

-Thanks.

I don't think he'll ever tell you that much, will he? He'll probably tell you just enough.

-Olly, what's that thing on top there?

-That's to pick up the sound.

I'll use this. You film... Put another tape in.

-That's a pretty good all-round camera.

-Don't let that drop.

-No, that doesn't...

-What about this one?

I don't know what that is, actually.

-That should fit.

-What kind of camera's that, then?

Is that the professional?

-No. It's a bit better than that one.

-You know, more options for, um...

You can adjust the image...

I don't know.

LAUGHTER

The sound is obviously the most important,

-so you can have a couple of, um...

-Channels?

You can have a couple of radio mics on here. And, you know, good luck!

Thanks, Charley.

OK, Dad, let's...

I'd love you to tell us a little bit about your first movie,

Catch Us If You Can.

So, I got Peter Nichols, the playwright,

and we sat in a room for three weeks

and wrote this story about a young couple on the run across England,

encountering all the things that you would expect to find in the '60s.

So, it was a very dyspeptic kind of view of England...

# Catch us if you can... #

..which was obviously aimed at a young pop audience,

so it missed the mark.

It got quite a lot of attention.

I think, Telsche and I, the first film appearance

was in his first film, Catch Us If You Can.

I remember we had to call the actor Daddy -

run up and say, "Daddy, Daddy!"

And I remember crying and saying, "But he's not my daddy!

"That's my daddy over there!"

-Can you remember it?

-I remember that.

-I can remember feeling disturbed, you know.

-I can't even remember that.

This guy, Judd Bernard, gave me this script.

And he also gave it to Lee Marvin.

We met for lunch and Lee said, "What do you think of the script?"

I said, "It's really bad!"

Typical Lee Marvin, he picked up the script.

He said, "I'll do this flick with you on one condition."

And he threw the script out of the window.

That's typical Lee Marvin! A gesture, you know.

Meaning, you know, rewrite it completely and then we'll do it!

Well, of course, your father only went to America to make a movie

with darling Lee Marvin, who was the most unbelievably intelligent person.

Lee Marvin was a remarkable actor.

And he was the one who picked your father to do the movie.

And your father was just perfect for him.

You know, I didn't aspire to be a film director

or to be a novelist or anything.

I mean, I just thought maybe I could write some articles

and maybe some stories, you know.

I was very modest in my aspirations.

And then, going into the army was another phase altogether.

Um... And, you know, when I was in the army,

when I was, you know, 19, I met your mother.

I met Dad in Morvan. He was in the army.

He was doing his army service for two or three years.

-What were you doing?

-I was a nursing student...

-Sorry, but what...?

-..and I went to Morvan,

which was a kilometre or two away, and that's where I met your father.

For me...

..it was a way of escaping England...

..and the English class system.

What do you think it was that made Dad

so appealing to you, as an Englishman?

Well, he probably, um... Perhaps I was not unattractive.

And maybe that had something to do with it, OK?

There was something, you know, slightly exotic about it, too,

and the fact that, you know, she was German, you know.

It was like, in a way...

..courting the enemy!

Did they accept you, Dad's family?

You a German, and then they were British, just after the War?

There was no way I would have even expected them not to accept me,

Christel Boorman, Christel Kruse!

I had never any problems with people. Funny, isn't it?

I was never nervous of that.

Which was your favourite film that Dad made?

-My favourite film was Hell In The Pacific.

-And why is that?

Because it's about two people, Lee Marvin and Toshiro Mifune,

one Japanese and one American, stuck on a beach island,

and they don't like each other very much.

It was the most difficult script I've ever attempted

because there's no dialogue.

But that film was actually a reflection of their marriage.

-Yes.

-It was these two people, who didn't,

on some level, didn't get on.

-They clashed like the Titans!

-Yes, they did.

But they resolved to get on.

I think he was really and truly...

I mean, he just pursued me. OK? Pursued me.

I fell for it, left, right and centre.

And we had four beautiful children and made sure that marriage lasted.

You know, we had this tumultuous marriage, and somebody

described our marriage as

the continuation of the Second World War...

..by a different means!

I absolutely was determined not to leave four children in a school.

I thought, "I don't care about their education," as such.

I'll take a tutor with me, you know.

And he wasn't a great tutor because... That's it.

And you did all very well. It was OK. You know. You did all right.

Although we had a wonderful childhood,

-travelling from place to place...

-Yes.

..going on the movie sets with you and Dad.

-You created this homely atmosphere.

-Yes.

And you were the real Earth mother.

As relationships go, I think we were quite a close family.

We were a good family.

As we were growing up, we all travelled around the world together.

We were always in a lot of his films.

But in Hell In The Pacific, for instance, where we

were making the film in a very remote South Sea island, where there

were no doctors or facilities, it was really impractical to take...

Er, you were five or six.

And the twins had just been born, Daisy and Charley,

so we left them behind. They were only...

what, seven or eight months old?

And we left them with a couple who were working for us.

I think Mum was put in a very, very difficult position

because on the one hand, you know, she had two daughters, you,

you and Telsche, who were six and seven.

That's quite a young age, too, you know.

You needed attention, obviously.

And I think she was in a tricky position

and I think that she had to make a decision.

She couldn't not leave Dad alone out there.

And we came back, four months later,

and they were just on their first birthday, and they were walking.

-So, we missed out on quite a lot there.

-That's a big sacrifice.

-But eventually, you went to Ireland?

-Oh, yeah.

We went to Ireland,

and we found a marvellous house to live in.

And I worked on it for 12 years, to make it what's what.

I thought it was fairy-like.

You know, when you're little,

you think that all the little fairies live around in the trees and the woods.

Mum and Dad allowed us to be free, very free, in terms of adventures.

All my girlfriends from school, who came up to visit and stay,

I think everybody was very excited because they knew that they'd

be either going down a river or going on horseback up some mountain.

We had this privileged childhood in a way that Mum and Dad hadn't.

You know, Dad had quite humble

beginnings in a sort of lower working class family.

My mother's father had pubs, a gin palace in the Isle of Dogs.

That's where my mother was born. And this huge gin palace, which...

In a slum.

And then we had this upbringing that was in film,

and we all had each other. We had a very strong bond.

When you make a film, it's like taking a mistress, really.

It's worse than that, for a wife, because, you know, you've no

time and you're away. Even if you're there, present, you're away.

When I was making Leo The Last, with Mastroianni,

we were shooting the picture in six-day weeks.

And Saturday night, I went to dinner, Mr Chow's, with my designer,

Tony Woollard, and his wife, the four of us. And I was exhausted.

I was so tired. I didn't really want to be out to dinner, but...

Christel constantly interrupted everything that was being said.

She just was unbearable...

..because she wanted attention.

And then I said, "OK. Come on. We're leaving." And I pulled her.

And she said, "No! I'm staying." And she sat down. I said, "Come on. We're going."

Pulled her again, and just as I pulled her again,

she decided to get up.

So she flew over my shoulder,

and there was a spiral staircase

and she went flying down this spiral staircase and I thought, "Oh, God!

"That's it."

Everybody was watching.

So I dashed down the staircase and lifted her up,

grabbed our coats and took her outside.

It was lucky there was a taxi. People just got out. Jumped into the taxi.

And we sat back

and I thought, "This is finally the end of the marriage."

And we sat there for a moment and she turned to me and said, "You were magnificent!"

And I looked at her and she said,

"When I was falling down those stairs,

"I could see all these women's eyes, and I knew what they were thinking."

"I wish I had a man who loved me enough to throw me down the stairs!"

And she finally got the attention she was looking for!

Um, they were great parents, loving parents,

and I think that they really, you know, by the time they...

I think that... I think that Dad, um...

..you know, had maybe a little bit of a wandering eye.

Our marriage broke up,

and then he wanted to go off into the sun...

sunset.

THEY LAUGH

A lot of things had happened in the last 25 years.

Dad had remarried and had more children, who were wonderful,

and that had created a rift in the family.

This documentary coincided with Dad separating from his current wife.

And in a way, we both found each other again.

Nothing that much has changed, and I haven't been here for 18 years.

That's a new bridge! I don't believe it. Wow!

It's not nearly as big as I remembered it to be. There's Dad!

I don't believe it!

-Mm... My baby!

-God, this is such a shock!

-The house looks much smaller than it used to.

-Smaller?

-It looks...

-It looks much smaller, you know?

-Look at the blossom.

I can't believe it! It looks gorgeous...

..for some reason.

You see, if you had a proper crew...

What?

If I was shooting this, I'd be sitting in the other direction,

so you'd have the beautiful backlight.

-Front light, like this, is...

-Harsh, isn't it?

-..is always harsh.

-Yup.

It's harsh and it doesn't... And also, the landscape looks better.

-It looks much better, looking that way.

-It does, actually.

You might do a shot, looking up that way.

Yeah. Further down the river.

-It's OK.

-Just get another hand, will you?

-Yeah!

-What do you need two for?

He was a bit of a risk-taker, I have to say. I mean, you know...

I mean, I wouldn't say health and safety was at the top of his list.

It always had to be an extreme. It always had to be...

And I was very interested in how people respond

in extreme situations.

Deliverance on the river...

..how those actors responded to being pushed to limits.

We had control of it with the sluices of the dam upriver.

Open the sluices to a certain extent

to bring the river rushing down.

And Voight was saying, "You mad fucker, Boorman.

"I know what you're going to do. You're going to open

"those fucking sluices and we're all going to be swept away."

He's looking for quite a lot of things in life.

He's looking for great love, he's looking for perfection.

He wants to be a good dad. You know, he wants to do good by his children.

It's fantastic. You feel the force of the river.

It's like...feeling the strength of nature.

And I find it very exciting. It's a sacred place for me.

I'll try to get across to the rock.

I suppose you need that kind of character,

or the kind of character he is, to be...

Cos he's not just a film director.

He's a scriptwriter, he's a writer.

He's written many books, and he's very competent in what he does.

I wouldn't change a frame of any movie I've made.

Not because they're perfect,

but simply because I'd be too bored to go back and start doing it again.

I've made films in the way I have, where I want absolute control.

I write them and direct them, I want to be my own producer.

I don't want anybody in authority to tell me what to do,

and possibly, there have been occasions, where

I could have probably improved the films with more collaboration.

But somehow, it was essential to me for it to be my vision,

and to be exactly as I wanted it to be.

Um...a nightmare. He's an absolute nightmare.

He's a bully, he's aggressive, he's mean to people, he's cheap.

I mean, I did Deliverance with him - it was my first film.

And I got a tricycle.

You know, that's his own son. I should have been given points.

If I'd got points, points in the box office, oh, I'd be so rich!

I've been very lucky to be able to work with Dad, because I worked

right from when I was three years old, up to not that long ago.

I cast my son, Charley, he was 17, for a number of reasons.

First of all, because he has a beautiful personality,

as simplicity and a purity at that age.

I knew I could work with him in these difficult circumstances.

And you know, there was a lot of opposition to it. Because of that,

I suppose I was very hard on him because I desperately wanted it to work.

There were a lot of people who were quite negative towards the fact

that I was going to play the lead role,

and so I think, in some ways, when I was working with Dad,

it was always one take with me,

and six or seven takes with other people,

so I had to really be on it, and I think it was partly to prove

to people that I could do the part and stuff like that.

So he used to put me in these ridiculous situations, where I would

have to bounce down this waterfall, and Dad would do it all in one shot.

I remember, I broke both baby toes four times on each foot,

running around the jungle.

It's about this boy, who the father finds, eventually, in the jungle,

and you see him go through rites of passage in the movie.

Actually, you put your son through a kind of rites of passage,

father to son.

That's a statement, not a question.

I'd prefer that you said it!

People, to this day, they quote that line, "Squeal like a pig."

How did that come about?

Oddly enough, I was...

Because everyone was very nervous about this male rape scene...

Warner said to me, "You've got to do some coverage for television,"

for when it's shown on television. You can do some coverage,

particularly with the language.

So there was a lot of foul language during the course of this rape.

And so we sat around and thought, "Well, what can we say instead?"

And somebody, I think it was Rospo, came up with, "Squeal like a pig."

Immediately I thought it was much better than any of the other swear words.

We cut them all out and used it in the main version.

And it kind of stuck.

Poor old Ned Beatty.

Whenever he's walking on the street, people say,

"Squeal like a pig."

-Weee!

-Squeal.

-Squeal louder.

-Weee!

-Louder.

-Weeeee!

-Louder.

-Weee!

-Louder.

-Weee!

And Deliverance itself, had you read the novel?

And had you met James Dickey, the author?

He was a very intimidating figure for the actors.

He called them all by the names that they were playing - it was all real to him.

Dickey was a sort of fantasist.

When I first met him, he took me to one side and he said,

"I'm going to tell you something I've never told a living soul.

"Everything in that book happened to me."

I thought, "Right.

"They buried this guy up there somewhere. Jesus!"

He made me promise not to tell a living soul.

Of course, I wanted to tell someone immediately.

I said to Charles Orme, "Do you know what he told me?

"Everything in that book happened to him."

And Charles said, "Yes, he told me the same

"when I was at the door waiting for the toilet."

KATRINE LAUGHS And he went on telling everybody.

And when I went up there with him,

when he actually got into a canoe and immediately turned it over,

I realised that nothing in that book had happened to him.

"Don't come up here any more, ya hear?"

Let's do one like this, OK?

-Ready? Rolling.

-Right.

Everything you can see, left and right here, we planted.

-Something like 10 or 15,000 trees.

-And did that take you all day?

Yeah, most of the day. SHE LAUGHS

I started planting too late in life.

But some acorns are now sturdy trees,

and I'm not yet too old to climb it.

And I'd lie in its branches,

watching the world recede by one foot every year,

which is how much they grow.

-It's quite a nice...

-Oh, lovely.

-Did you read the book?

-Of course I did.

Well, there you are. That's at the end of the book.

Forgive me if I didn't remember every single...

THEY LAUGH But we could quote that.

If I could get up there. I haven't climbed it for a while.

-OK.

-Ready?

-HE GRUNTS

-OK.

-I'm up, I'm up.

-He's 74.

HE GRUNTS

-Are you up?

-Yeah, I've got it.

-I've got you.

-I'm OK.

-Are you OK?

-Yep.

I planted this tree, yeah, from an acorn.

I planted it at the same time as...

Whoops! KATRINE LAUGHS

Oh, look out! HE LAUGHS

You might have to get the fire brigade to get me down.

THEY LAUGH

Rolling.

This is the Hamilton Wood, it's an ancient oak forest.

And I've shot here several times,

particularly with Excalibur.

And, er...

..there's something very magical about it. Very healing.

And, er, I really love this place.

And, of course, you know,

really, the way to shoot in the oak wood

is to move the camera

because then the trees move in relation to each other.

You never quite... It never quite expresses itself

in a static shot like this.

-When we were doing Excalibur, you said...

-This was a long time ago.

You kept saying your lines so fast, so fast.

I said, "Slow down, Katrine, and cut, slow down. Do it again.

"You're still too fast. Why are you saying your lines so fast?

"We can't understand what you're saying."

-You said, "Well, I..." You were only 17.

-17, yeah.

"Oh, oh, I'm afraid you're going to say

" 'cut' before I've finished." SHE CRIES OUT

I think that if you're the daughter of a director,

and you're working on a movie, you're always so desperate

to impress the technicians that you're not a prima donna.

I know. When I first started,

that's what I wanted to do. I wanted to impress the crew,

more than I did anything else, that I knew what I was doing.

-It's a youthful thing, isn't it?

-Yeah. Now I don't give a fuck.

THEY LAUGH

You definitely expect 1,000% from everybody

-because you're giving 2,000% yourself.

-Well, no.

You're quite a taskmaster.

Well, I just, I feel... All I feel about it is this -

there's a tendency... The best crew I ever worked with was on

Hell In The Pacific. It was a Japanese crew.

They were so disciplined, they didn't move, they didn't...

A crew in England or America,

they're always wandering around, eating, with a mouth...

When you speak to them, they have a mouth full of food.

Or they're chatting.

You know, it's...

The Japanese crew would stand completely still

until they were required to move.

That's exactly the way I like it. THEY LAUGH

Can you do that one more time, and turn to camera with the sword?

-Why am I turning to the camera?

-Just turn.

Pull it and draw it and just look menacingly at the camera.

Here's the shot, right?

Ready? You've got my left hand.

How about this?

-If you have the full-length figure...

-Yeah.

-Like that.

-..it's mysterious, you know, and it's me. You're doing it to me.

-OK.

All right, my love. We'll just do that, my angel.

OK, Dad, great. Rolling.

And cut.

Is that all right?

Well, I think that Dad, in a way,

is a little bit like Merlin in Excalibur.

When Merlin says, "Sometimes a dream, sometimes a nightmare."

I always identified with Merlin

because, Merlin, what does he represent? Magic.

And what are movies about? Magic.

And, you know, you sit back and you think, somehow you've made this thing,

and there's a satisfaction in that.

I think the darkness of Dad is - and his secrecy -

-all goes back to his childhood.

-Mm-hm.

You know, what had a profound effect on me was my mother's affair.

Unconsciously, that situation has occurred in my films.

For instance, in Point Blank, it's about

this man, played by Lee Marvin, who is betrayed by his wife,

who goes off with his best friend.

Again, that triangle, it's Arthur, Lancelot and Guinevere.

SHE CRIES OUT

My father and his best friend Herbert were both wooing my mother.

She favoured Herbert

but my father had a job and Herbert didn't.

She married my father, really, out of a kind of proxy.

She married the man she loved, his best friend.

My father went off into the army,

and Herbert didn't.

My mother went to work for him, and they were together a lot,

finally reconciled with the man that she loved.

I liked him very much.

In fact, in some ways, I preferred him to my father.

But I suppose it was a dilemma for me.

I was either betraying my father, or betraying my mother.

There was a choice, in a sense.

You know, my father was a disappointed man, in a way.

Because of the presence of this lover who was always there,

and somehow, he felt it.

And I was, somehow,

a rival...

..for my mother's affections.

So, he wanted me to succeed where he had failed.

And at the same time, he also wanted me to fail.

So there was a terrible strain there between those two things.

Was your mother somebody you could talk to, or your sisters?

-Was there anybody you confided in as a child?

-No.

I never did confide in anybody.

And this is something that obviously carried through your life?

Yeah. I think that, um...

Yes, I think it did, yeah.

This is all stuff I'm working on here,

all these scripts and things here.

And then...

-You know, my book shelves are all full.

-Yeah.

There's no more room on my book shelves for any more books.

There's probably no more room in my mind and memory,

because that's what happens when you become senile.

You've used up all your memory.

There's nowhere left to go.

I've got a little bit left.

I always loved, um...

Er...

..Blake.

-There was a time when I read nothing else but Blake.

-Why was that?

His whole vision of a kind of... England.

It was very, um...

It had a huge impression on me. Um...

The Sick Rose.

O Rose, thou art sick

The invisible worm

That flies in the night

In the howling storm

Has found out thy bed

Of crimson joy

And in his dark, secret love

Does thy life destroy.

Does that make you think of...?

It makes me think of Telsche.

It makes me think of a beautiful young woman taken in her prime.

Yes, well, that's what it's about.

You know, every...beauty in nature

has within it the worm of... of death, you know.

That's the nature of life.

And, er...

-Where's Telsche's tree? There.

-There.

-So you planted that when she, um...?

That, yeah. We had a ceremony here. All the village came and everything.

Telsche, my sister...

Dad planted this when she died, just after she died.

-It's lovely, isn't it?

-Yeah. So that's been there 11 years.

-11 years.

-It was about this high when it went in.

-Amazing.

-So it's grown.

-What was your relationship like with her?

-Well, it was very...

..very special. You know, there was this occasion when she was -

before she was one year old - she walked very early and she was...

She fell into a pond, face down and...

..your mother found her and she couldn't do anything,

she just collapsed.

I heard this wail and I ran out to the garden

and there she was lying and I took her out

and she... There was no...

..pulse.

No heartbeat... She was just white.

Dead. And...

This was a time, it was before...

It was before mouth-to-mouth resuscitation was widely known

and I'd read in...

I'd just glanced at it in a newspaper...

Just like an illustration. I didn't even read the article.

Suddenly, it just appeared before my eyes...

And I read it.

That's the extraordinary thing. I hadn't read it at the time,

but when it appeared in front of me, I looked at it and it told me

how to do it, and I gave her mouth-to-mouth...

..and she started to breathe.

There were four of us - Telsche being the eldest.

She would have been 49 this year,

but she died, in 1996, of cancer.

When you think of your children, and you see the two of them

together and then your heart breaks when you think about her.

Well, there is no way of coping with it. I mean...

you...you... Part of you dies with the child.

And, um...

-I miss Telsche every day...

-Yeah.

And, you know,

I remember on Long Way Round, I think she was with me

every step of the way. I definitely felt her on my shoulder.

So she died 12 years ago and that's just...

There was a kind of moment where the whole family just collapsed.

I think it changes, doesn't it,

the dynamic of the family afterwards, because there's

somebody missing and there's always this feeling of someone missing?

Telsche always said that,

"My mother and father both gave birth to me."

It was an extraordinary thing and I think that...

made a bond between us which was...

..so extraordinarily close and complex.

And she was very much the working arm of Dad.

You know, she did second unit and co-directed with him...

-I suppose, living in Paris...

-She was wonderful with you.

-You two were absolutely together, weren't you, really?

-Mm.

And I always felt that it was the saddest thing that you lost her.

It was unimaginable that Telsche could die.

I think of her every single day and she always helps me from above

because I always think of her laughing or how

she would joke or what she would say

in a difficult situation. "What would Telsche do?"

So I feel that she always helps me out.

She and I were doing a comedy live on French TV every week,

-do you remember?

-Yeah.

We would write the sketches

and we were the Boorman Sisters on a kind of family show

that was comedy.

-Venez, les garcons!

-Venez! Nous rejoindre! Alors...

Looking back, I think maybe...

-that was destiny, maybe it was meant to be.

-It was meant to be, maybe,

that we would have the time with Telsche.

-With Telsche, before she died.

-Yes.

And sometimes, the phone rings and for a second...

I think, "Oh, it's Telsche."

NO SPEECH

HE SNIFFS

-The rain does it enough.

-Yeah. That's pretty.

-I love this, don't you?

-Let's put the small ones at the front.

-Well, she was so special, wasn't she?

-Yeah.

-And so loved.

Um...

I remember, at the funeral, there must have been 100 people there who

thought they were her best friend!

Well...she was their best friend. It's true.

But, I mean, I always had a very special relationship with her.

I remember once, when she was about 12, and she said to me,

"Dad, Dad, which of us do you love best? Which of the four?"

And I said, "I love you all the same." You know?

"When you arrived, I loved you dearly

"and then when Katrine arrived,

"I loved her and love is not something that you can measure

"exactly in that way."

"Yes," she said, "but there must have been one of us

"that you love just a bit more." You know.

She knew it was her, in a way!

And I said, "No, no, no!"

I said, "Look...

"Telsche, if I tell you which one it is,

"I want you to swear to me you'll never mention it to a living soul.

She said, "I swear, I swear!" I said, "Katrine."

She so knew that wasn't true!

But she's in good company here.

-Stendhal is here, isn't he?

-Yes.

-Truffaut.

-And...

-Dalida, the showgirl singer!

THEY LAUGH

-Is she here? Hello!

-Hello, John. How are you?

-Here's a present for you.

-Oh, how sweet of you.

Thank you very much.

So, the pan of the house, the family arrive.

Cut to me opening the door so you know we're in my house.

-Then I have two cameras here, just trained on dinner.

-Mm-hm.

Tell me what you'd have done

to establish, from my point of view...

Well, I would've been tempted just to do your pan down the house

and discover everybody at the table. Then straight into it.

-OK.

-That's what I'd have done!

I'll just wire Dad up for sound.

Don't do anything where I have to talk,

because I'm not very good on film.

Brush your hair and put lipstick on, then you'll look great!

-Why don't you brush your hair and put lipstick on?

-I did! I did.

GIRL LAUGHS

-You've got a big trip ahead of you.

-Yes.

I was shooting a picture and I had this huge fever and a rash.

This rash included the palms of my hands...

Not on the palms of your hands!

Shh! I went to UCLA emergency.

They got very interested in this because a rash on the palms

of the hands is one of the signs of syphilis!

You couldn't even tell me.

I went back and Christel said, "So what did they say?"

I said, "Well, they think it's syphilis." So she said...

you'll have to have your own knife and fork and plate

and keep separate from the rest of us!

He couldn't have gotten syphilis from anybody...

Well, I think we can all gather that!

You don't get syphilis unless you've been poking it around a bit!

-Sticking it in places you're not supposed to!

-I said it to him.

But it was...

-No, it was valley fever.

-It was valley fever when they took a blood test.

Wasn't that the time you packed off and left Daisy

-and I behind when you went to the South Pacific?

-Yeah.

Imagine that! They were only, what, three months old?

-I am massively fucked up because of that.

-John!

John, little do you know, and you're their father.

They were nearly two.

-They were not nearly two!

-We were tiny!

He left for 12 weeks.

I left them with Mr and Mrs Miller who were like my grandparents.

-You left us with two people you barely knew.

-And I went.

I could not leave you to go off by yourself.

Who knows what you might have done?

You know that I wasn't going to lose you

when the children were small.

There was no way.

-Let me tell you how old they were.

-Yes, we get it, we understand.

You were just two irresponsible parents making a movie rather

than looking after their children.

I did not want to lose a husband to another woman.

It's a very LA thing to do, you know?

JOHN LAUGHS

It's fine. I'm comfortable if you're comfortable.

Sweetheart, when I came back, you walked towards me...

Yes, we were walking already, that's the whole point.

-I was going, "Look, Mum - look what you've missed!"

-No.

You just make me puke.

Puke! Puke.

We were happy when you left us with Mr and Mrs Miller.

-We finally had a stable home!

-JOHN LAUGHS

-Have an opinion.

-What?

Have an opinion while you're sitting here about that.

-About your marriage.

-What?

-You had a wonderful marriage.

-Exactly.

-We had a wonderful childhood.

-He was a very lucky man.

I've just got to make a phone call.

-Yeah, but I feel....

-Is Olly coming later?

-Above you?

-Charley, sit in the window there with your sister.

He loves to push it and take the piss out of me here.

What sort of son are you?

A loving son.

Ja. Just switch off this...

-It's off.

-It just drives me nuts.

Look at her. I can't stand it any longer.

-It's finished, it's off.

-Three, four hours. It's not off.

-Olly's going to take you home.

-What?

Olly is going to take you home!

What do you mean? When is she going to take me home?

Very soon, I hope!

What about a singsong?

# Take you home... #

-Just a minute...

-# Take you home, take you home

# Take you home, take you home

-DAISY:

-# Take me home

# To my family

# Who I love forever and ever... #

Shh!

# Through eternity

# And Telsche

-# Will be with us forever... #

-HER VOICE FALTERS

You've got a lovely voice, Daisy.

(Take me.)

-I wish...

-Oh, Daisy.

Telsche!

Could you just switch that thing off?

SOUND FADES

You know, more than making a film or wanting to direct,

that was really secondary to just wanting you back in my life.

I can cut away, chop everybody out and it's just you and me.

That's how I feel.

This viewfinder, which was given to me by David Deutsch

when I made my first film, he was the producer, and he inscribed it there.

And, um...

I've used it on many films and...

I want you to have it.

I've inscribed it with your name here, "Katrine, love Dad,"

because I'm passing the baton over to you.

-I'm so touched.

-The shots must belong to you. The images.

Thank you, Dad. I'm so touched. That's amazing.

For me, I mean, I just enjoy

you know, hanging around with you. I don't...

As long as...

I'll be happy about this film

as long as you don't release it or

put it on television or anything!

LAUGHTER

You know what Billy Wilder said to me once?

He'd just finished what was his last film and I said,

"How's the film, then, Billy?

He said, "Well, John, you know, our movies are like our children.

"When you have a kid, you hope he's going to grow up to be Einstein.

"But sometimes, he turns out to be a congenital idiot."

SHE SNORTS WITH LAUGHTER

And it was really bad, that last film of his!

-I love you, Dad.

-Do you?

-Yeah.

I wish I could say the same for you.

I think that was very nice. It was lovely...